


Survivor's Guilt

by SRLoftis



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Grief, I cried a lot writing this, Loss, Love, Mourning, This is very short, and i'm very sorry, but very very sad, it just came out, please believe that I didn't mean to hurt anyone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 06:12:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15479376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SRLoftis/pseuds/SRLoftis
Summary: The problem was this guilt that tore at her as she lay there trying to sleep, the grief, his grief overwhelming her. Because he had lost her. She had him but he would never ever have her, and even the one-heart feelings in the eyes of this Doctor every time she looked at him would have been enough to make her heart break for him, but he had two. And how could she put that into words to tell him now?





	Survivor's Guilt

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. Sorry. Here be sadness.

She was trying so hard to be quiet. This Doctor, _her_ Doctor (but they were both her Doctors, weren’t they, and that was the problem), slept better and more often than the _real_ Doctor (and she needed to stop thinking of him that way), being in a human body and all, but he had that Time Lord brain, so he didn’t exactly sleep soundly. Her arms wrapped around her middle, desperately trying to hold it all in, her teeth biting her lip, her eyes scrunched together, curled up in the foetal position. She had to hold it in.

Tears ran down her face faster than she could wipe them away, and her body shook with the sobs. She tried her best to stay still, quiet, but she had a feeling it was futile.

After a minute, she felt the bed shift and heard the Doctor turn towards her.

“Rose?” It was his voice. It was his hand that coursed through her hair in comforting confusion. “You a’right?” His voice was groggy, he was still in the clutches of his dreams.

She put a hand over her mouth and nose, to stifle her sobs further. “Mm,” she said with a nod, hoping he’d go back to sleep and forget this by morning.

Instead, he rubbed his eyes and rolled himself into a sitting position. He considered Rose, curled up on her side of the bed, and leaned over to turn the lamp on before settling himself behind her, wrapping her in his arms. He nuzzled his nose into her neck.

“Talk to me.”

She wiped her nose and then her tears, trying to gain her composure. Her body was still convulsing involuntarily every once in a while. She wrapped her arms back around herself and curled in even closer, if possible.

“‘M okay.”

“Like I’m always okay?”

This made her let out a few more uncontrollable sobs. She was so happy, she wanted to be happy. She was _supposed_ to be happy. That’s what all of this was for in the first place. The problem was, she wasn’t crying for her own happiness.

“Rose, please.” He ran his fingers through her hair again, ritualistic and soothing, trying to calm her. “I can’t help if I don’t know what the problem is.”

“You don’t always have to be the Doctor,” she said, trying to take deep breaths to stifle her sobs.

“I do when it’s you. But you already knew I was going to say that.” He pushed her hair out of the way with his nose and kissed her neck tenderly. “Please.”

She sniffed and tried to relax her body in his arms. Sobs rolled through her intermittently against her will. She breathed deeply for a minute or so till she had control of herself again, then turned over to talk to him face to face.

“It’s… I’m happy. I get to have everything. I get to have mum and dad and Tony _and_ I get to have you. It’s like a dream come true.”

“Right. And you’re crying because…” He gave her his confused face. It was rare, but she’d definitely seen it. He understood everything in the universe, but somehow she still posed mysteries to him occasionally.

She gave him the bare hint of a smile and wiped more tears from her face, leaning her forehead against his chest in appreciation for a moment. She took a few more deep breaths.

“It’s… him.”

“Him. As in me?” She could tell, even without looking at his face, that he was trying not to let this get to him. Because he knew that’s why she didn’t want to tell him in the first place. He always knew, eventually.

“The other you. The… original you.” She’d been about to say ‘the real you’, but that would have been too far. She was sure he’d figured out that she thought of them that way. The last few weeks had been tumultuous to say the least. They’d had good times, bad times, they’d had horrible times and incredible times.

It had been a rollercoaster, trying to get used to him being here. And she loved it. She loved _him_. She did. She’d discovered that he was the Doctor in all the best ways, all the ways that really mattered. Except one. It had hit her tonight. And the fact that this was the first time it had occurred to her made the guilt so much worse.

Because he _was_ her Doctor. They both were. They always would be. Because they were the same man. And she was his Rose Tyler. She was _their_ Rose Tyler. But there weren’t two of her. Just the one, stranded in this stupid parallel universe that he would never get to visit again. She couldn’t be in both places. She was the only one.

This Doctor got to have her, and she got to have him, and it was a happy ending she’d never dreamed of. She was always going to stay with the Doctor, no matter anything else, but it was going to be hard. She’d accepted that. It was going to hurt, getting older and watching him stay the same. Watching his pain as she died and he lived. But this was a new ending, where they grew old together, were happy together, without all the pain.

But not for him. He had to go on living his life, alone, remembering her and never having her and _loving_ her. Because if there was one thing she’d learned over the past few weeks, it was that this Doctor was _her_ Doctor. They were one and the same, in two bodies, and this Doctor loved her. Oh did he love her. Which meant the overwhelming feelings that made him speechless and excited and overjoyed and hysterical and _too much_ for his one human heart to feel, so much it physically hurt him sometimes… that was what the original Doctor had felt the whole time, and more because he had that second heart to feel it all the more.

And it wasn’t that she needed those two-hearts feelings. This Doctor had proven to her over the last few weeks that everything he felt, everything he was, was more than enough for her, for the Doctor that she needed. He was everything he needed to be and everything she wanted about the Doctor. The problem was this guilt that tore at her as she lay there trying to sleep, the grief, _his_ grief overwhelming her. Because he had lost her. She had him but he would never ever have her, and even the one-heart feelings in the eyes of this Doctor every time she looked at him would have been enough to make her heart break for him, but he had _two_. And how could she put that into words to tell him now?

“He’s so alone,” she said, because that was all she could say. “I’m here with you, we’re together, and he’s just… alone.” The Doctor held her tighter, she suspected because he didn’t know what to say either, and she cried into his chest. He buried his face in her hair and she felt his tears and heard his quiet sniffs in the dark.

They lay together and wept for the Doctor’s pain, for his grief, they poured their two hearts together and felt everything he felt and cried for him, because they knew he could never cry for himself. And as loud and as long as they cried, it didn’t matter, because he would never know in his grief the solace of crying together, holding each other.

He would always be alone.


End file.
